If a Zh05 makes first blood on a unit the rest of the unit will react and as Wolf said their is no guarantee of them all being in the same place. Xm25 and ZH05 are both information age weapons one of the first things that is going to happen after contact is both are going to try and locate the other force. For the US that would likely mean deployment of a small drone or even a attack drone like the Aerovironment Switch blade.
neither the Zh05, LG3, XM25, K11, M320,M203 or any other grenade launcher in use with the possible exception of the BS-1 Tishina are quiet on launch but none are quiet on effect. The Aim of these weapons is to lay down as much death on a enemy as possible in as short and a violent and bloody a encounter in hopes of a one sided Slaughter. a Single Shot from a Zh05 is poking a hornets nest against a Pier Army. Against a lesser foe it might be more effective but again the aim would be a Ambush.
No they would just make it less effective.
Well actually I think you are either confusing yourself, or mix-n-matching scenarios here a little.
In a near-peer engagement, UAVs and micro UAVs are not going to be launched after contact, but rather sent out ahead of the friendly ground forces.
In the information age, near-peer ground combat is going to increasingly resemble air and naval combat, where first look and first shoot advantages becomes near overwhelming.
When fighting against a near-peer, a single ZH05 trooper is not going to be all by his lonesome looking to take a pot shot. He is going to be fighting with the rest of his squad. That's going to immediately put massive pressure on the enemy squad, and both sides are in a full squad-on-squad brawl instead of taking pot shots at each other.
As you said, combat between near-peers is about laying down as much firepower and death as quickly as possible on the enemy.
That means all hands on deck, and a squad could ill afford to have one man not fighting and fiddling with an UAV instead.
The job of the UAV operator is in finding the enemy before he knows there are hostiles nearby, and using that information to set up an effective ambush where all or most of the enemy squad is taken out during the first moments of contact being initiated.
If the squads blunder into each other, its about laying down firepower and killing the hostiles faster than they can kill you.
UAVs just won't come into play until the outcome of the clash has already been effectively decided.
Current gen squad based UAVs and micro UAVs are mostly geared towards fighting hopelessly outmatched foes, where its your entire squad against a handful of dug in insurgents, rather than a rival squad of well-trained and armed soldiers who are executing squad based combat manoeuvres.
For a squad, in my view, its better to have 2 x ZH05s and another dedicated grenadier with a PLZ87 or PLZ06 automatic or semi automatic grenade launcher rather than 1 XM25s (1 MX25 probably costs more than 2 ZH05 and both a PLZ87 and PLZ06).
Is there a point to this one? I mean a M1A2 Abrams Main battle Tank cost more than what all of it's crew makes in a Year. Army Privates don't buy their weapons out of pocket in the US Army and have not since the American Revolution.
Somebody still has to foot the bill at the end of the day.
The more you spend over the odds on weapons, the less money you have left in the budget for other things that could be just as, it not more useful to your squad.
At some point, spending an exact 95% of the budget for an exact 5% of capacity just isn't as good as living with a marginally bit less capacity than the theoretically most possible, and instead get twice the kill power for your squads.
I would bet that existing frag armor would probably be effective as is against either the current XM25 or Zh05 rounds but that would only stop what is hitting the armor. Against more powerful types down the line adding a layer of non newtonian fluid body armor might be a option.
Frag armour is only good against frag, it does nothing to protect the wearer from the pressure wave impact, which is going to be the real killer for modern, armoured troops.
Still need to bee able to move in battle the biggest hindered in the infantry right now it the limitations of movement All this talk of the advantages of shoot and scoot for ta Zh05 would be tossed out the window if the guy holding it can't bend his knees or climb a obstacle.
Well, think about it, most flexibility is in bending forwards. Our spines and bone structure massively limits how much most of us could bend backwards, and its just not a very common or useful range of motions for soldiers.
The shield would only extend slightly below the buttocks to maybe mid-thigh.
Unless you plan on trying to do squats or sit on your hunches, that shield shouldn't limit your movement much, if at all.
The bigger issue will probably be visibility limitations with having a plate effectively blocking out all view to the rear.
A compromise might be a fold out or spring out design, where the head and leg guard sections are normally folded (doubling the protective qualities of the shield against traditional ballistic threats, and it could replace the tractional back plate to save on overall weight) to be not much bigger than a traditional ceramic plate.
When the soldier fears a smart grenade is incoming, he pulls deployment toggles to extend the shield fully. Once the threat is gone, it could pull a second set of toggles to fold back the shield so it doesn't restrict vision.
Again I think a Liquid layer for shock absorption. It's not just the impacts it's the blast wave. a material that could absorb that would have to be integrated into future armor.
That fluid layer will need to cover pretty much ever inch of the soldier's head, neck and torso at least, and that will get heavy.
of course the issue is that if the back is covered in a armored shell where does your guy have his gear?
Most soldiers ditch their packs as soon as they engage the enemy anyways. Little different here. The packs will normally be slung over the shield, and ditched as soon as possible to allow the soldier to fight better.
I think Soft Exosuits will be the more practical take for general use. Although like Revision and the others the key problems of power and what to do if the suit looses power as well as Comfort I mean metal struts jutting out allover cannot be comfortable. I know Some People Love the Idea of Personal Mecha suits and big exosuits but they just seem to get in the way.I imagine more batman than Ironman.
I think the most practical first gen exosuit design will probably look a lot like the Jackets from Edge of Tomorrow (but with more and better torso plating), which is a half way point between Batman and Iron Man.
Technologically speaking, that size is probably most feasible compromise to get the right balance between size, endurance, durability, manoeuvrability and cost (miniaturisation tech is expensive).
If the suit runs out of power or is damaged, the operator could just step out rather than having to almost machine himself out of it, as with a Batman like close fitting integrated exo-frame.
Iron man is just bad fantasy. There is no way he could fit half the stuff he has in that suit (which can fold into a brief case!!!) without having to make the skin as thin as a beer can before even considering how ridiculously small the power plant and propulsion systems need to be. Unless he got Antman tech and actually shrinks himself to the size of a raisin when he is in the suit, its technologically impossible to make that suit work without an entirely new school of science. But I digress...
